What’s missing in our schools?
I’m writing about the five most important elements missing from Arab educational curricula, and I would like to see if what I have thought of so far is accurate enough (Think Jordan for now):
1- Skills of debate
2- Scientific research
3- Sex education
4- Practical, hands-on, active learning
5- Therein lies the puzzle — Help needed on this one.
Any thoughts?
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August 21st, 2006 at 12:50 pm
social skills!Big time!
August 21st, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Good teachers.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Music Classes, to my knowledge only few private schools in jordan have them even though it should be implemented at all public and private schools.<br /><br />
August 21st, 2006 at 2:08 pm
<p>What is missing is a reconcilation between what is taught in the classroom ("imported" ideas from other cultures) and the local culture. If you attend schools in Europe, you’d see scienticism applied in the culture as it is taught in the classroom - all is a continuation of the same view of the world. </p>
<p>For us, on the other hand, what is taught in the classroom bears nothing, sometimes, to what our culture’s outlook to the world is. When was the last time you used the "scientific approach" to problem solving outside the chemistry lab? </p>
<p>All the points you listed are ones missing from our culture, teaching them in the classroom is useless because those ideas will remain in the narrow domain you introduced it in: the classroom. </p>
<p>This isn’t answering your quesiton, but it is a random thought. </p>
August 21st, 2006 at 2:13 pm
But isn’t shaping the minds of the young also shaping what you call "culture", Villager?
August 21st, 2006 at 2:38 pm
<p>Tololy: </p>
<p>Shaping their minds with new ideas, or splitting their personality into two (an introvert "Western" one, and an extrovert "Eastern" one)? You can bend a bar so much before it splits into two. </p>
<p>I see confusion in my generation where people cant reconsile what they’re taught in the classroom with their cultural surrounding, so they begin living with one foot in each world. </p>
<p>Do you understand me, or am I the only one to feel this way?</p>
August 21st, 2006 at 2:40 pm
<p>English! as in speaking english fluenly to be able to communicate with more people of other backgrounds. </p>
<p>And I stress on the practical work too.</p>
<p>Music as Bakouz said, I find it essential, get the students busy with music, and sports than racism and street fights. </p>
<p>Social manners i.e. how to eat, how to salute, how to talk, how to present yourself, these little details.</p>
<p>Handy work… in carpentry and sewing, Both sexes, allow them to really make things out of wood and wool, clothing, tables, clocks, table cloths, things that they would bring back home proudly.</p>
<p>But the mentality needs to be passed to the teachers first so that they can affect the students.</p>
<p>thanks for the post!</p>
<p></p>
August 21st, 2006 at 2:47 pm
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined="" />I believe that all what you have listed above are effects
rather than causes. They are all symptoms. I think it’s very easy to determine
them. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined=""> </o:p><br />I believe they are all the offspring of our corrupt systems
and misconceptions about tradition/religion. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined=""> </o:p>Children are inherently terrorized in mind, they grow up
this way. Their teacher is terrorized, he/she is afraid to talk or discuss. So
how could we expect a mental breakthrough to our children? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined=""> </o:p><br />Here I am talking in general. Of course there are some
exceptions. </p>
August 21st, 2006 at 4:48 pm
<p>It seems that classes involving the arts are lacking.</p>
<p>I feel that the Jordanian educational system places too much emphasis on the sciences and not enough on others such at the arts. Are students offered choices on which classes they may select from after they take required course (math, chemistry, biology, physics, English, foreign languages, history, etc.)? Here we are offered choices for 2 or 3 out of the 7 hours of the school day that we may take courses of our liking. These usually include art, music, welding/metal shop, electronics, woodworking, automotive repair, business classes, gym, and a variety of liberal arts. My beleif is that these courses help to in producing well rounded people. It seems evident in Jordan, but it’s also in the US, that there a lot of detractors who would rather students take heavy scientific courseloads.</p>
August 21st, 2006 at 5:42 pm
<p>Reading!</p>
<p>Just the fact that people can go through 12 years of elementary education without having to read a single book outside their textbooks is enough to tell me that’s probably the number one problem right now.</p>
August 21st, 2006 at 6:11 pm
<p>Tololy:</p>
<p>I realized I wrote another random thought, rather than answer your question - I was rushing for the bus, sorry.</p>
<p>"isn’t shaping the minds of the young also shaping what you call "culture""</p>
<p>What is culture in this context? Is it the set of customs/etiquettes? Is it the lagnauge? The history from a biased perspective? Is it the myth that gave birth to the ‘nation’ and gave it its world-view and view of itself amongst others?</p>
<p>Whichever it is, somethings cannot be taught in a classroom, because classrooms truncate, abstract and simplify reality and focus on narrow issues. I never heard of a course called an ‘introduction to everything’ or the ‘unified theory of existence’. Even ‘culture’ classes breakdown culture into its components and try to tackle this task by divide-and-conquer. No class can give you this wholistic view, the myth, the story of creation, your view of yourself and of man that a culture provides to its people. This is something you are molded into by the subtle hands of society, the earlier, the better.</p>
<p>Even from a time perspective, culture "seeps" into a society, and isn’t introduced by shock therapy like classrooms try to do. This is because cultures resist. To this end, MTV does more by way of "cultural adjustment" than great classrooms on Plato can do, because MTV seeps unnoticeably while your guards are low.</p>
<p>In case someone is lost, your question was whether we can use classrooms to fix problems in the culture, and my last thought on this is: classrooms are part of the institutions that cultural dominates, like culture dominates political offices, business codes…etc. That is so because classrooms are made of, and answerable to, the culture they are set in. Trying to resist this culture dominance <em>from within</em> is very difficult. </p>
<p>A much better way to adjust a culture is <em>from without, </em>especially someone who is sufficiently an outsider to avoid those internal checks and balances, but sufficiently an insider not to alienate the culture they are trying to modify. Someone like a prophet…</p>
<p>I hope I made sense. </p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
August 21st, 2006 at 7:53 pm
The first one is the most important (ie. debate skills)… They should include more about debating, because debating is an important skill, and judging from many examples (here around blogs) we find that we generally fall miserable to maintain a good debate! I remmember that they gave us a little bit about debates and a glance on the argumentation theory as kids (around fifth or sixth grade) in the social studies ("ijtima3iyat" or "tarbiyeh wataniyet" im not sure); I personally benefitted from it very much, but the topic never re-appeared in the curriculum!! Besides, I think other students beside me didnt take it seriously because no-one explained the real importance of the argumentation theory… But i give them the credit of introducing it early in the curriculum (actually fifth grade isnt very early, maybe starting from third - or even earlier - might yield better results on students)…<br />
August 21st, 2006 at 7:53 pm
<p>What pessimism.</p>
<p>I for one, would like to see "Advanced Scientific research" as it is — for me, what is glaringly missing from our academic world.</p>
<p>One thing about sex education, I am not really sure if school is the "right time" for that, and if school children have enough maturity at that time to take sensibly. </p>
<p>I remember Mrs. Regan in the 80s started an anti drug campaign and took it to the schools, as a result of that, drug use in schools nearly doubled. </p>
<p>Little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Its a controvercial issue anyways.</p>
<p>Villager, I am interested in your thoughts. "If you attend schools in Europe, <em>you’d see scienticism applied in the culture as it is taught in the classroom</em> - all is a continuation of the same view of the world. "</p>
<p>Could you elaborate on that. And to answer your question about day to day application of scientific problem skills, I for one used it through out my life. Everything that became relevant was used, and I can think of a number of people who not only benifit from what they learned, but actually crave knowledge when faced with day-day problems.</p>
<p>Just today, a young friend was asking me about the best way to organize data and I could’ve given him the answer, but I could see that he has that thirst. So instead, I directed him to the concept of "Normal forms" for some reading which has helped me answer the same question in the past.</p>
<p>But please, tell me more, if we can define that gap, it becomes easier to address it in our own children and children we can influence.</p>
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:44 am
"<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-2993">I remember Mrs. Reagan in the 80s started an anti drug campaign
and took it to the schools, as a result of that, drug use in schools
nearly doubled."<br /><br />Sari, what is the source of this assertion? And, if true, what makes you believe that Reagan’s (feeble) anti-drug campaign in the United States was the cause of increased drug use? That is an extraordinary (and rather odd) assertion.<br /></span></span>
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:09 am
<p>Music, drama, theatre arts, and a serious appreciation of the arts and creativity in general. </p>
<p>A better education of the humanities and social science topics, and a realization that these do not fall under the "memorization and recital" subjects… </p>
<p>More reading assignments…</p>
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:48 am
Great input, please keep the ideas flowing…
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:36 am
<p>Tololy: </p>
<p>"please keep the ideas flowing"</p>
<p>inclusive of yours…I’d be interested to hear what your opinion is since you floated the topic. </p>
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:18 am
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">Villager, I thought you’d never ask. To tell you the truth I am quite impressed with the comments this post generated, everyone has something of value to add to the argument and I appreciate all contributions. I also tend to get greedy so I am hoping for some more.
<p></p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span lang="en" style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB">
<p> </p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span lang="en" style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">That’s not what you were asking about, however, so I will get to the point. Aside from the four elements I originally came up with, I think after I examined the comments that humanities in general are put on the shelf so to speak, in our schools. Everyone wants their kid to be a mathematical prodigy or a scientist of some sort and very few people would appreciate their child being a writer, for instance. Our education seems to either cater for this taste, or to have created it.</span><span lang="en" dir="rtl" style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">
<p></p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">
<p> </p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">As for your own answer to my question, I honestly believe the word "society" fits in better in your original remark than does "culture". What I got from your comment was that, basically, if our "culture/society" is rotten, we should not attempt to change that in schools but rather bring up the kids crooked just like their environment. Perhaps I am taking this too drastically, but I would refuse a defeatist approach of the type. I see it fixes nothing.</span><span lang="en" dir="rtl" style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">
<p></p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span lang="en" dir="rtl" style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">
<p> </p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="ltr" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="mso-bidi-language: AR-JO">I don’t quite get your idea on the within/without method. I am inclined to believe that if our fathers’ generation had a certain set of errors embedded in it, and we can detect it, then we should work on making ourselves and our children better by avoiding making the same mistakes. How do we do that? Proper families and education (more elements can be discussed and if convincing, added). This is both within and without, as you put it.
<p></p></span></p>
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:59 pm
<p>Sex Ed. Definitely. People here have a serious problem when it comes to admitting that things like AIDS, STDs and accidental pregnancies occur. People have sex. People have <em>always</em> had sex, and people will <em>always</em> pay taxes. <em>AND HAVE SEX</em>! So get your thumbs out of your arse, and start teaching them about the risks involved in the matter, rather than telling them they shouldn’t do it and then shooting them when they do. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing, that’s why AIDS is so rife in Africa, where education is very limited. (I was even told by someone that a "traditional" remedy for AIDS in some parts was to have sex with a virgin. That’ll help the problem!).</p>
<p>So, in conclusion: Sex Ed all the way!</p>
<p></p>
August 22nd, 2006 at 2:58 pm
<p>Honestly, taking Arab schools in general, what they lack is not only the debating and sex ed skills, but dealing with those outside their culture. Since there are foreigners in every country, students should be assigned projects that involve them with other nationals such as going out and taking surveys in certain areas or anything of that sort…so they grow up knowing that the whole world doesn’t revolve around their culture…</p>
<p>More social skills in addition to great debating skills will produce great results in kids…</p>
August 22nd, 2006 at 3:04 pm
netiquette
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:18 pm
<p>Peter S,</p>
<p>I don’t mind being wrong. In fact, that’s how I become right the next time :).</p>
<p>However, to avoid comment-hijacking-arguments, please avoid refuting assertions made by other people until you have facts to back it up.</p>
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:03 am
<p>I agree with the suggestions regarding the need for more of a focus on the humanities in our curricula. I believe as a part of this process, the focus should also work on teaching children the contributions made to society and the advancement of our understanding of the human race by people who have studied and specialized in the humanities. In our schools we talk and focus our attentions only about the contributions of scientists, doctors, etc. Even if we do mention great writers or philosophists, it is in an offhand manner and as an afterthought. </p>
<p>And even though you are only listing 5, I believe that there is a lack in the teaching of common sense in our school environments. Of course this wouldn’t be a class or a book they would learn from, but it comes from the teachers and from the structure of the school system itself. Many things about the structure of the school system do not make sense, so how are children expected to learn to make sense of the world? </p>
<p>We do not encourage the questioning of authority, which breeds generations of people who take a certain medication because the doctor who studied for X amount of years told them to, and stop eating a certain food because researchers found out it is linked to certain maladies, or start eating certain foods because researchers found out it could be the next cure for cancer. People who don’t go out in search of the truth for themselves, but rely on others to tell them everything. </p>
<p>And thereby ends my session of falsafeh, I will relieve you now. :)</p>